Started an hour or so ago and look what has happened.
Some tips for a foolish newbie?

Have I invested in the skills well enough?
Is my armor where it should be?
How can I make money to buy good stuff at this point in the game?
What can I do to survive longer?

Hmm, lvl 19 in a skill is probably enough for lvl 4. But you should probably have points in other skills too, at least one that gives ranged attacks and the magic resist skill. Your problem is more that your stats are crappy, spend more time rolling up a better character.

Armor, you should fill all slots, except gloves if they affect your spellcasting, otherwise OK at your level.

Money: Sell potions and scrolls to id, don't waste scrolls. Use learn magic, instead of identify on armor, weapons and known devices. When taking things back to town to sell, give devices a priority. Buy a shovel to dig for treasure.

Thanks.
Is it possible to get through the game purely melee?
I'm trying to go through the game without using magic or ranged attacks.
What stats would be considered decent, and what stats would be considered good? How long do you have to roll to get decent and good stats?

If you want to play a warrior then strength and constitution are the ones you want highest.
Pure melee is a rather hard stunt, considering that you are a beginning player.

As said above. Invest in other skills. Perception is good because it lets you get a feeling of how good (or bad) an item is when you wear it. Use the scrolls of learn magic to know how many charges a wand has and if the armour or weapon is any good.
You should also always have some healing potions and scrolls of phase door with you in case you find yourself in trouble.

I'm confused... you only need a blessed weapon if you're a pious spellcaster.

As for rolling for good stats, make sure the autoroller is turned on in your birth options (press '=' for options, then set birth_autoroll to yes). This has to be when you roll up a character though (when choosing race).

As for survival, I strongly suggest you buy scrolls of phase door and either teleport or cure serious wounds, or other survival gear.

Started an hour or so ago and look what has happened.
Some tips for a foolish newbie?

Have I invested in the skills well enough?
Is my armor where it should be?
How can I make money to buy good stuff at this point in the game?
What can I do to survive longer?

How to survive Angband in 3 easy steps..

1) Always have means of healing and escape. In the beginning, this means, buy ?Phase Door, ?Teleporation and !Cure Serious Wounds. Sangband is quite generous with money, if you have trouble making money, pick up every ammo you come across and sell one piece -> free ID. Don't be stingy with your supplies, stinginess is probably player killer Nr. 1.

2) Pick your fights. Never fight multiple monsters in the open, always run to a hallway, in case of casters (i.e. novice mages), to a corner, so that only one monster can see you. Always ask yourself: is the fight winnable? If not, bail out (run to the next stair, phase door, teleport). Ask yourself: is the fight worth winning? That comes with experience, but for starters, 'm','j' and ',' are bleh, 'Z', 'Q', and 'e' are *bleh*. You don't have to kill everything you come across, *band is a game about maximising your reward while minimizing your risk, if you stick to that, you'll probably win.

3) Always have a plan. "Somehow I'm gonna kill him" doesn't qualify as a plan. "I try to lure his escorts away, then I try to kill him" does. Never play on autopilot, it's easy to loose even high level chars that way.

Hang in there - Sangband's early game is very hard, it's very easy to die. One suggestion is to use martial arts - choose Karate or Wrestling (but not both) and raise it as your first skill, instead of swordsmanship. I find my characters are more likely to survive to the middle game if I do this (especially casters). By all means pump swordsmanship later (when you've found a decent sword, maybe).

Skills you should raise early, after getting your first killing skill up to a useful level (21 IMO): Perception, Stealth (depends on race - don't bother with Dwarves or Giants), Dodging (ditto), Spell Resistance. The first three are all raised by raising Burglary, so playing a burglar makes this a lot simpler.

Melee only is a great challenge, but you will need great detection and escape. Will you allow yourself to use wands of teleport away?

EDIT: forgot to say, try taking quests at the low levels - the rewards are good for selling even if they're not useful. Quests do get very hard later on though.